Charities Not Involved in Relief Efforts Hope Donors Will Stick With Them

President Bush has been urging Americans to donate generously to tsunami relief groups, but last week he

told donors to be careful not to “shortchange” other nonprofit organizations. Gifts to the recovery effort, President Bush said, should be viewed as “extra help,” not a substitute for other contributions.

Many charity fund raisers hope Americans will follow his advice, but some are worried that the outpouring of money for South Asia’s recovery will cause financial trouble for an array of causes in the United States.

“I think we will have a tough time over the next 60 days,” said James Harnett, chief operating officer of Covenant House, which provides shelter to homeless youths in New York and other cities.

Corporate grants are the most likely type of support to decline in the wake of the tsunamis, fund raisers said.

More than $94-million in cash has been donated by corporations so far, and many businesses have also donated products and services and matched relief donations by employees, according to a Chronicle tally.

“A major corporate donor of ours has given millions to the relief effort,” said Laurie Harvey, executive director of the Center for Work Education and Employment, in Denver. “My development director and I both wonder if they will cut their gift to us now.”

History suggests that charities can expect a slowdown in giving, but few catastrophes have led to a long-term decline in charitable donations.

A 2001 study by Indiana University’s Center on Philanthropy of 13 crises affecting the United States, including the Arab oil embargo of 1973 and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, found that only one event produced an overall decline in giving. After the stock-market collapsed in 1987, charitable giving declined for the year, but only by 1.3 percent.

Even so, some charities are taking a cautious approach and delaying their fund-raising mailings and other solicitations. “So many people have told us they are responding to Asia, we made a decision to hold back an appeal letter this month,” said David Burgess, executive director of Charg Resource Center, a Denver charity that serves low-income mentally ill adults. Mr. Burgess said that he cannot afford to let the letter, which raises more than any other of the organization’s solicitations — up to $20,000 each year — get lost amid the tsunami appeals. He plans to mail it next month.

So Far, So Good

Some organizations that have been soliciting donations in the weeks since the disaster say they have not felt any of the negative effects they feared.

“We thought the tsunami would have a great impact, but we’ve been pleasantly surprised,” said John Braune, president of Heritage, a Little Rock, Ark., company that conducts telemarketing campaigns for 200 nonprofit clients, mostly health and human-services groups such as Special Olympics and Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Mr. Braune said that, in recent days, several callers have told him that some of the most generous telemarketing donors — those who have made donations of $100 or more in the past — have cited the tsunamis as the reason they cannot give now.

Nevertheless, he said, most of those donors said they were willing to give later. Smaller gifts have been unaffected, and Heritage telemarketers have been meeting their fund-raising goals, Mr. Braune said. “I am amazed,” he added, “at the generosity of the American public.”

Nicole Lewis contributed to this article.